Queen of (K)nots
by Ponderer of ponderings
Summary: They both had lost. And needed something to help them go on. How were they to know, how are we ever to know?
1. Chapter 1

It was during moments like these he wished days would just end. He had felt like that all day long, for longer if he was being completely honest. You can almost always tell when a day is going to be one by the time you get out the front door in the morning.

The man had been having a string of these types of days; terrible morning that turned into torturously long afternoons that ended with an abhorrently long horrendous night.

The nights; those were the worse parts, because you just knew that those other people were sitting down to a family dinner, or going out for a sickeningly sweet date, getting a drink at a hot new club or just being with a loved one. Being with anyone.

He was always alone on those nights. Coming back to his room at the hotel after his awful long day. Ordering a room service dinner with enough for only one, and then eating it in silence at the tiny table. And after that he would drink a beer, once cold but now only room temputure. And he would flip through hundreds of channels, never finding anything on.

Then he would lie in his bed for countless sleepless hours, always hoping for rest, but always knowing it will never come.

But tonight was different. Tonight would be another sleepless one, but for a different reason. This one would be spent on an airplane that would finally bring him home from his too long trip. After the excruciating hours it took going through security and checking his luggage, the man was finally sitting in his seat.

He had been able to get a window seat, which he was relieved of. It seemed to him that the window meant that he would find an easier distraction, so as to seem closed of to any conversation from an annoying seatmate.

As the man sat there waiting for the rest of the passengers to board, he hoped that there would be enough seats so that nobody would be sitting directly next to him. After all, it was a flight boarding in the middle of the night, and thus far the plane seemed pretty sparse in the way of passengers.

Checking his watch he noted that the gates had five minutes until they were supposed to close. The last few passenger were straggling on, when a young, shorter woman stopped in his row. She looked at the ticket she held in her hand, looked back at the row, and made her way over to the one beside him.

She didn't as much as look at him, or anything really for that matter. Her gaze was fixed at a point on the top of her lap, where her small hands were also positioned. Her hair; black with artificial violet highlights throughout, grazed her shoulders and slanted in a way which covered the majority of her face.

The man was relieved that it seemed his seatmate wouldn't be too chatty on the long flight, but on the other hand there was something just so intriguing about this woman.

Intriguing, or maybe even familiar.

* * *

Hey all! Thanks for reading the first chapter of my first longer story on this site! Since this is my first, I am a little nervous, and also very open to feedback. Let me know what you think! I'll upload the next chapter in the next couple of days, so you can really get the tone of it.

Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

2

You can fall for pretty strangers

And the promises they hold

~Matt Nathanson, Romeo and Juliet

The plane had taken off and the woman still hadn't looked up from the point on her lap. At first the man had thought she may be nervous about flying and was waiting to move until they had taken off smoothly, but since they had been flying without problems for over twenty minutes now he was quite sure that wasn't the case.

Richard decided to try and make some sort of conversation, wanting to come off as a casually concerned citizen, and not get too in her face friendly as he thought he himself would like to be approached if the roles were reversed.

It had been quite a bit of time since Richard had spoken so he cleared his throat, for the dual purpose of warming up his vocal chords and to make sure he didn't scare the young woman with his upcoming inquiry.

"Hello miss", he said. A simple statement just to start things out, to test the waters.

The young woman looked up and her shifted slightly back from her face. She didn't quite look at him; rather her gaze shifted the tiniest bit in his general direction. He still couldn't see most of her face, but he could see a bit of her cheek.

It had been a few second since he had spoken to her, and Richard was beginning to think that the woman wasn't going to respond. He had already gone back to his novel when a quite, gravelly voice let out a small," …hello".

Richard let out a small smile and turned back to the woman," My name is Richard, Richard Grayson."

The woman too turned her head, fully this time, before responding in that same gravelly yet definitely feminine tone, "I'm Raven."

If Richard had been the sort to not be able to keep his expression at bay, he would have taken on a look of awe when he finally got his first look at his seatmate. The first thing he noticed, surely the first thing anyone noticed were her eyes. Richard thought he must be mistaken, but the more he looked into them the less he could deny them. Her irises were the exact colour of violets. They were so amazingly beautiful, and just looked so clear on her heart shaped face.

The next thing he noticed was the way her pale skin looked just a little to tight. If he had to guess, he would say that the woman probably hadn't eaten a good meal in a while, which didn't make sense because she based on her clothes, she had to have a little bit of money.

In all Richard thought that the woman looked stunningly beautiful, but there was also a touch of sadness in her. Raven looked young, maybe a few years younger than himself. Except at the same time she looked like she had lived through thousands of lives; ones of hurt and sorrow.

Briefly Richard wonders if people see the same look on his own face.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Well I woke up to the sound of silence

And cries were cutting like knives in a fistfight

-Fun. _Carry On_

It is 4 am on a Wednesday morning. Most little girls should still be sleeping in their beds having sweet dreams of magical things. They should be snuggled up tight in their blankets with a few stuffed animals around them. They should be at peace. They should be happy.

But at 4 am on this morning, on most mornings, Raven Roth at the tender age of six years old is witnessing something that no child should ever have to see. She doesn't as much see it as hear it. Raven is sitting at the bottom of the stairs while her parents, Arella and Tristan, are arguing in the kitchen.

Tristan has come home far too late again. She rose, jolted awake and ran down the stairs as soon as she heard his the heavy slam of the door and his hulking footsteps some through the door. He obviously wasn't in the clearest frame of mind. In fact Raven had never seen him looking so disoriented and angry before.

This is not a first; Tristan has never been the nicest, even on his best days. And Raven knows that when her father comes home late he is bound to be in a worst mood than usual. She knows that he will come stumbling through the front door, through the hallway and go straight to the kitchen.

In the kitchen he finds Ravens mother. Arella is obviously the parent who Raven takes after most. They both have the same black hair; they both have the same soft features and calm and serene outlook on life.

But on these late nights and early mornings Arella is not her usual calm self. Raven can always hear her mother pacing, worriedly in the kitchen. She knows her mother is cleaning and cleaning everything again and again; never wanting her hands to be still. She will make tea and sip it while waiting for her husband to come home. Hoping and wishing for her husband to come home.

But once Tristan makes his way through the kitchens threshold is when the sparks to fly.

Tristan will start yelling at Arella as soon as he spots her. He will accuse her of ridiculous things in his too loud voice. He will call her dirty awful names, which Raven knows she is never supposed to use. Tristan will yell and scream at his wife for hours sometimes, somehow never loosing steam.

Sometimes he will even raise a hand to Arella' face. It is never too hard, but it's always loud enough that Raven can hear it from her spot on the stairs.

Through all this Raven never hears a peep come from her mother. She never speaks or shouts back at Tristan. Even when the hitting comes Arella is still silent.

After awhile the fighting will end and Raven will have fallen asleep on the stairs at some point. When the normal morning hours come, she always finds herself back in her bed with her mother lying next to her with a small but serene smile on her face.

But this night was different.

Tristan came home again; much too late and much too out of his mind. He stumbled into the kitchen, where like always Arella was waiting for him. Tristan started yelling, but something was different. His voice was louder; his speech was much more slurred. And Rave could hear things being flung around the kitchen.

Her mother, usually totally silent, started speaking. Her voice was too low for Raven to hear what she was saying, but it sounded panicked. Tristan's voice only grew louder, and the noise of things being thrown around only continued.

And then she heard it; the slap that meant her mother had just been hit. Usually this wouldn't happen until the yelling started to lessen. And then it happened again, and again.

Arella was louder now, but Tristan was louder still. Raven knew though, that a conversation wasn't happening. Tristan's yelling was continuous, he wasn't listening to Arella but just kept yelling louder and louder words slurring into each other and making no sense. Arella's voice sounded furtive and worried, and also hurt.

Raven rose from her seat, feeling too scared to stay downstairs. But at that exact moment in which she stood her fathers eyes met hers through the banister of the stairs.

But that's not what Raven noticed.

Raven noticed her mother. Arella was standing a so Raven could see her profile, and what she saw scared her so much she couldn't move an inch. Arella hair, the hair that Raven had inherited from her was a mess, it stood up at some points and looked jostled all over. All over her mothers pale skin Raven could see red spots where her father had laid his bare hands on her. On her face and arms there were little nicks, the kind Raven got when she tried to help with dinner put didn't pay attention to her knife.

Raven was so stunned at her mother's appearance; she didn't notice her father moving towards her until her mother started screaming. Screaming for Tristan to stop. Screaming for Raven to run.

Raven, as always did as told and sprinted up the stairs to her room. The last thing she saw was Arella lunging at Tristan from behind. She locked the door as soon as she was inside, somehow knowing to do so without being told. She dove under her covers and reached for a stuffed animal to snuggle with. But the only thing on the bed was the book Arella had been reading to Raven when she went to bed. So Raven held Winnie the Pooh in her arms, huddled under her covers and waited for her mother. Waited for safety.

It was not the usual comforting sight of Arella that awoke Raven the next morning. It was the sight of four strangers in uniforms standing in her room. One of them trying to gently wake Raven up.

The one woman of the group spoke to Raven but she didn't hear a word. She didn't say anything, didn't even make eye contact as one of the men picked her up with her blankets and book and walked her down the stairs and to the front yard.

The officers had tried to shield her from the sight in the kitchen, but she saw. She saw her mother, on her back, surrounded by a pool of blood with the carving knife in her chest. And she saw her father, passed out on the sofa in the living room, with a can of beer in his hand.

Raven didn't say anything as she was deposited into the back of a police car. As more strangers came and said words that Raven didn't hear. She didn't cry or scream either. She just clutched her book, and knew she would never see Arella again.


	4. Chapter 4

What kind of man misunderstands

A woman like you?

~Mission Bells, Matt Nathanson

There's nothing much to say about the flight. They took off, with minor turbulence, neither Richard or Robin seemed to mind it. They made banal small talk for about twenty or so minutes into the flight. At some point during the lull in the conversation Richard decided to get up and excuse himself and went to use the facilities.

He still couldn't fathom how easily a woman like that could just walk into his life. Although Raven wasn't a huge talker, she was polite. She didn't seem to _hate _talking to Richard, but it was hard to tell if she was really enjoying the conversation. They hadn't talked about anything that serious. All he had learned about her was that she had been to San Francisco before, but he didn't know if she lived there or was just visiting. He also knew that she knew a few people from the city, but didn't know if they were family, just friends or something else.

In fact it seemed that every time Richard asked her a question, she politely answered it, but that's all she really did. She never told him more than he asked for. She knew she was the quieter type, from the second he saw her he could tell. She was a gentle type of person. Something about her mannerisms just told him that whatever she did, she did with the utmost care a precision.

As Richard got back towards his seat he could see that Raven had pulled out a book. And not just any book, he couldn't see the title of it but he could see the girth of it. The book had to be over 400 pages. He wondered how she had even got it through security.

When Richard's steps became more audible, Raven looked up and moved into the aisle, to let him pass.

"What are you reading?" Richard asked, he didn't want the conversation with Raven to end. Even though he knew that she probably wouldn't want to talk all the way through the seven-hour flight, he wanted to talk to her for as long as he could. He didn't know if he would even see her after this.

Raven looked up at him, her dark eyelashes shielding a good portion of her eyes from him. She looked back down at her book, as if she forgot it was even there. After a moment she adjusted the book, a worn looking novel that didn't even have the title on the cover.

"Oh, it's Austen, Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice."

Delighted to recognize the title, and have something to say about it Richard quickly spoke up scared that she might open the tome back up if the silence lasted even a second too long.

"Ah, I think my sister read that one in school. She wasn't a big fan of it. Probably never even finished it. I think she kept complaining about the characters, called them 'way to two dimensional' or something. Are you liking it so far?"

The look on Raven's face was a bit peculiar. Richard had quickly come to realize that she expressed a lot of her emotions through her face, rather than her voice. Her tone almost never changed from topic to topic.

But this time her voice did slightly shift. It sounded almost offended. "I've read it before. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books, actually. The characters are brilliant, some of the most realistic and complex one's you'll see in a book. The book these days just don't even compare to Austen. I guess everything that makes a brilliant work of literature brilliant is just lost on the younger generations."

Richard was a bit taken aback. He hadn't heard so much come out of Raven. And the passion she had, who knew it could only be awakened by books.

"I never actually read it myself. My siblings aren't really reliable sources for anything. It probably is a great book. I'll have to pick a copy up sometime. What's it about?"

"It's about a young woman, her family and social standings. And it's about her pride, and her prejudices" Raven answered in her regular quiet voice. She still looked interested in the conversation, but kept shooting little wistful glances back at the book on her lap.

"Really, Pride and Prejudice is about a young woman with some pride and a bit of prejudice. I never would have guessed." He added a wry smile at the end to show he was joking, at least a little bit.

"I don't mean to be rude, but you really have to read the book to get the whole effect of it. You can't just ask someone to explain it to you; you can't even read one of those summaries on the Internet. Books are something you have to experience. How can you have Pride and Prejudice without the beautiful long sentences, the overly descriptive descriptions. And the characters, you need to read it to be in that world. To fall in love with that world."

Suddenly Richard felt cruel about interrupting Raven's reading. With the passion that she talked about it, you could see that books where something almost magical to her. They brought her away. They gave her meaning, another life.

"I'll let you get back to your book then."

"I apologize, talking to you has been nice, and this whole trip has just been so tiring."

"I take no offense. I have some work I should be catching up on anyways. And there's nine hours left; plenty of time to talk."

Raven picked up her book again, casting Richard what was probably her version of a smile. It was tiny, if he blinked, he would have completely missed it.

"Enjoy your book, Raven"


End file.
